But now seeing we have granted, that even believers themselves may conceive sin through the power and the deceitfulness of it, it may be inquired, whether God ever thus obviates its production and accomplishment in them, by cutting off and taking away their lives, so as that they shall not be able to perform it. I answer,
1st. That God doth not judicially cut off and take away the life of any of his, for this end and purpose, that he may thereby prevent the execution, or bringing forth of any particular sin that he had conceived, and which without that taking away he would have perpetrated. For,
(1st.) This is directly contrary to the very declared end of the patience of God towards them : 2 Pet. iii. 9. This is the very end of the longsufiering of God towards believers, that before they depart hence, they may come to the sense, acknowledgment, and repentance, of every known sin. This
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is the constant and unchangeable rule of God's patience in the covenant of grace; which is so far from being in them an encouragement unto sin, that it is a motive to universal watchfulness against it; of the same nature with all gospel grace, and of mercy in the blood of Christ. Now this dis- pensation whereof we speak, would lie in a direct contra- diction unto it.
(2dly.) This also flows from the former, that whereas con- ceived sin contains the whole nature of it, as our Saviour at large declares. Matt. v. And to be cut off under the guilt of it, to prevent its farther progress, argues a continuance in the purpose of it without repentance ; it cannot be but they must perish for ever who are so judicially cut off. But God deals not so with his, he casts not off the people whom he did foreknow. And thence David prays for the patience of God before-mentioned, that it might not be so with him ; Psal. xxxix. 13. ' O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence and be no more.' But yet,
2dly. There are some cases wherein God may and doth take away the lives of his own, to prevent the guilt that otherwise they would be involved in ; as,
(1st.) In the coming of some great temptation and trial upon the world. God knowing that such and such of his would not not be able to withstand it, and hold out against it, but would dishonour him and defile themselves, he may, and doubtless often doth, take them out of the world, to take them out of the way of it; Isa. Ivii. 1. 'The righteous is taken away from the evil to come ; ' not only the evil of pu- nishment and judgment, but the evil of temptations and trials, which oftentimes proves much the worst of the two. Thus a captain in war will call off a soldier from his watch and guard, when he knows that he is not able, through some in- firmity, to bear the stress and force of the enemy that is coming upon him.
2dly. In case of their engagement into any way not acceptable to him, through ignorance or not knowing of his his mind and will. This seems to have been the case of Josiah. And doubtless the Lord doth oftentimes thus proceed with Ills. When any of his own are engaged in ways that please him not, through the darkness and ignorance of their minds, that they may not proceed to farther evil or mischief, he calls
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them off from their station and employment, and takes them to himself, where they shall err and mistake no more. But in ordinary cases, God hath other ways of diverting his own from sin than by killing of them, as we shall see afterward. (2.) God providentially hinders the bringing forth of conceived sin, by taking away and cutting short the power of them that had conceived it ; so that though their lives con- tinue, they shall not have that power without which it is im- possible for them to execute what they had intended, or to bring forth what they had conceived. Hereof also we have sundry instances. This was the case with the builders of Ba- bel, Gen.xi. Whatever it were in particular that they aimed at, it was in the pursuit of a design of apostacy from God. One thing requisite to the accomplishing of what they aimed at, was the oneness of their language ; so God says, ver. 6. * They have all one language, and this they begin to do, and now nothing will be restrained from them that they have imagined to do.' In an ordinary way they will accomplish their wicked design. What course doth God now take to obviate their conceived sin? Doth he bring a flood upon them to destroy them, as in the old world sometime before 1 Doth he send his angel to cut them off", like the army of Sennacherib afterward ? Doth he by any means take away their lives ? No ; their lives are continued, but he confounds their language, so that they cannot go on with their work, ver. 7. takes away that wherein their power consisted. In like manner did he proceed with the Sodomites, Gen. xix. 11. they were engaged in, and set upon the pursuit of, their filthy lusts. God smites them with blindness, so that they could not find the door where they thought to have used violence for the compassing of their ends; their lives were continued, and their will of sinning, but their power is cut short and abridged. His dealing with Jeroboam, 1 Kings xiii. 4. was of the same nature. He stretched out his hand to lay hold of the prophet, and it withered and became useless. And this is an eminent way of the effectual acting of God's pro- vidence in the world, for the stopping of that inundation of sin, which would overflow all the earth were every womb of it opened. He cuts men short of their moral power, whereby they should efl'ect it. Many a wretch that hath conceived mischief against the church of God, hath by this means been